Pink gin has been all the rage recently. The fruitier flavour profile and pretty pink colour create a different gin drinking moment, especially popular with the growing number of experience-driven consumers.
But that’s not the reason why one Australian distiller has added the delicious hue to their core range.
Applewood Distillery in the Adelaide Hills said consumers have been asking them to create their newly released Coral Gin for a while, but they were waiting for the right reason to do so. Brand Coordinator Noah Ward said they found that reason in the locations of some of their botanicals.
“At Applewood, we’ve always been about native ingredients and Australian landscapes as well… we were always looking for landscapes to celebrate,” Ward explained.
“One of the regions we get a lot of our botanicals from is coastal rainforest regions, particularly up in northern Queensland and northern New South Wales. So it felt natural to make an awesome little coastal rainforest inspired salty but kind of fruity style gin that really reflects that part of the world.”
“We thought we’d celebrate one of Australia’s most iconic landscapes, being the Great Barrier Reef, and make a gin that actually gives back to it by donating a portion of the profits to Great Barrier Reef restoration.”
One per cent of all proceeds of the Coral Gin will go to protecting and restoring the Great Barrier Reef, with an exact charity still being selected. As this is now part of Applewood’s core line, this means that the donations will be continuous, not just for a limited time.
Ward explained: “It’s all about giving back. If we were going to do a gin that had this color and was called coral, it needed to be giving back to coral reefs and restoration of that kind of environment.”
Creating the colour and the unique flavour profile of Coral Gin are key native botanicals that help showcase the region the gin celebrates. There’s strawberry gum, which gives a passionfruit strawberry kind of flavour; riberries, which are the tart fruit of the lili pili tree that give interesting notes of clove when distilled; and karkalla, which is a coastal sea succulent for the briny salt flavour.
“It’s a really cool mix of spicy, sea spray salinity, mixed with this kind of fruity style of gin from the strawberry gum leaf. There’s no actual fruit in there,” said Ward.
A first release of 1000 bottles that have been hand dipped in pink wax are now available to buy, but Ward said 800 have already been sold. After this release, products will be sealed with a natural coloured stopper.
Thankfully COVID-19 didn’t impact the creation or release of Coral Gin. So the story behind it is great to hear at this time when we’re so focused on the pandemic – a welcome reminder of the good things happening across all areas of the industry, even in the hardest times.
